The Revision of InSight

June 2025

I know, the title sounds a bit daunting, deep, and philosophical. Let me say it in a simpler, less dramatic way – I’ve had my first book (InSight) re-edited. Why edit a published book?

I look at it this way – let’s say you have a nice new car (pick any model). You enjoy driving it for a year and then decide to get the newer version of the same car the next year. Pretty much the same car but the new version has incorporated a few improvements and added a couple of new features. And now it drives and looks a little bit better than the one you had. Okay, back to the book…

Many have already read InSight, and I’ve been humbled by the positive responses and the sprinkling of deserved criticism. Being my first novel, it was admittedly raw. The editing process was what it was, and in my excitement to see my first book published, I gave it the stamp of approval probably quicker than I should have, and out the door it went for public consumption. The “sprinkling of criticism” came fast – as in twenty-four hours! I have a dear cousin who purchased the E-book version on the first day in was released, and after reading it in one day, she promptly sent me an email to congratulate me and say how much she enjoyed the book. And then I read the last sentence of her email – I’m attaching a list of things you might want to look at.  

When I opened the attachment, it was a list citing the page number and paragraph where I’d find typos, misspelled words, missing words, extra spaces, or incomplete thoughts. I read that list and felt like someone just dropped a boulder on my head! I checked each one and she was correct – how were these missed? Each issue was addressed and the book was re-released – and with my tail between my legs, I quickly headed off to start my second book.

With a little more knowledge of the process and a new editor, the second book was published, followed by a third. Each was an improvement over the first, both in content and format. I decided then to have this editor take a shot at re-editing my first book (I guess I could have done it, but it’s like asking a student to grade his own essay!). Four months later when the edited version of InSight was returned to me, I noticed that there was a whole lot of red ink and comments in the margins throughout the manuscript. Geez!  Was it that bad? Not really. The thorough editing process accomplished several things. The first was to identify errors in grammar and a few punctuation mistakes made by rookies. These were an easy fix. Now it got harder. Sentences were highlighted and in the margin was a comment that said this needs to be clarified. Usually, a recommendation was added to point me in the right direction. Sometimes it was more than just clarifying something; I needed to add more to a character’s description or a scene’s action. Basically, give the reader a little more to chew on. Then came the need to polish the final product with better words and phrases, and to clean up complex and wordy sentences. This really came down to replacing ordinary, everyday words and eliminating overused cliches.  

And so… my first book, InSight, has been re-edited and re-released. And because it was physically a different size than books two and three, this version was reformatted so that all three books in the series are dimensionally the same.

And THAT is why you edit a book, even if it’s already published.